Airport Detail, how does it work?

[Janov 2,383]

 I would like to add some additional airports but I don't want to duplicate what's already there unless there is a better version.

 

There is a small chance of "overlap" if two artists start to work on an airport simultaneously, true. I make it a habit to check here http://gateway.x-plane.com/airports/page if an airport is already uploaded, also check some relevant sites to see if there already is a custom version. Most of the time the original creators of those are allowing me to use their custom airport as a base outline to start my work. If you download an airport from the gateway, expressly NO prior consent is needed to improve and alter it!

 

If you find your airport of choice is already existant, download and try it, you might want to improve upon it (add/correct) and then upload your creation to Laminar. Thats the whole idea, Ben Supnik calls it the ratchet, ever improving (and updating) scenery for the airports.

 

Jan

[mdavis 10]

Yes, I just spent some time yesterday with WED and am working (slowly and painfully) on my local KEOS which is simple but has a unique FOB which will have to be created in Sketcher or another editor.  But perhaps I can create it in simple lego blocks for Gateway and then do it "right" after that.  Lots of things to learn.

[learn-by-flying 37]

To go back to the original topic:

 

"Airport detail" determines how fine the bezier curves of taxiway edges and taxi-lines are cut up into tiny lines to make them more "round". It has nothing to do with the amount of objects displayed. This is determined by the "number of objects" setting, and it affects both airport scenery and autogen alike.

 

The airport scenery is ONLY affected, if the creator of it sets a detail level during creation (the tab "show with" in WED). The default level is "default" (who would have guessed B) ). So if I place a fuel truck in WED, but set it´s detail level to "2 A lot", then it will only show if the user has set his "number of objects" to "A lot" or better.

 

I tend to leave all my objects at "default" for smaller, rural airports, but when I do bigger ones, I move most of the "fluff", like luggage carts, etc. to "a lot" or "tons".

 

For the airports that have 3D buildings and accurate layouts, go to this map (click on "required features" to start showing airports). Note that all the shown airports have been SUBMITTED to Laminar Research, but might not be included in a patch, yet. The plan is to do that more frequently in the future...

 

http://x-plane.cleverest.eu/

 

(Take a look at Germany, I am currently doing ALL of the airports there, done with about half of them, took me a year so far)

 

Jan

 

...and I would upload all the stuff I created here at avsim in a jiffy, if the process wasn´t cumbersome, intimidating, complex and time-consuming (hint, hint).

 

Jan

 

Thank you very much for the information and lesson. Now I understand what the options are doing.

[Janov 2,383]

Yes, I just spent some time yesterday with WED and am working (slowly and painfully) on my local KEOS which is simple but has a unique FOB which will have to be created in Sketcher or another editor.  But perhaps I can create it in simple lego blocks for Gateway and then do it "right" after that.  Lots of things to learn.

 

I looked at it on google earth, you might get a similiar shaped building with a red roof if you look in the lib/g10/US library, maybe in "suburb" or "commercial"...

 

One thing you really have to let go when doing lego-brick (for now) is to make airports that look exactly like the real thing, especially when the airport has some iconic buildings. There will be more buildings in lego-brick in the future, for now you have to resort to very generic ones - I look at them as "placeholders" and plan to redo a lot of my airports as more lego-pieces come available.

 

Jan